Charles West - Lawless Prairie

When she returned, he could see that she had freshened her face and tried to comb her hair with her fingers. He stopped what he was doing to examine her face in the early-morning sunlight. “Worked you over pretty good, didn’t they? I believe a little bit of the swellin’s gone down, though.” He gave her a warm smile then. “You’re gonna have a black eye for a day or two.”

She smiled, almost blushing in her embarrassment, knowing how she had mistrusted his motive for rescuing her, and then thinking he had deserted her. She knew then, looking into his rugged and honest face, that she could trust him with her life as well as her honor—an honor that she now deemed worthless. She felt compelled to apologize. “I owe you an apology, Clint.”

“For what?” he asked.

“For being so much trouble,” she lied, “and I want to thank you again, sincerely, for what you did.”

“No trouble a’tall,” he replied cheerfully. “I’m on my way to Montana, and I ain’t on any time schedule to get there.” He gave her a reassuring smile, relieved to see that she had gained control of her crying fits. “If we’re gonna get you home again, I need to know how long you’ve been gone, and from what direction you came. When I first spotted you, you were headin’ straight west. Did they bring you most of the time in that direction?” She nodded. “How many days did you travel?”

She almost had to stop to think about it. It had seemed an eternity. “Three nights before the night you came,” she said, shuddering inwardly when she recalled.

“Can you tell me anythin’ more about it, flatland, hills, mountains, rivers?”

“Our house is in the mountains. When they took me, we left the mountains, but we rode through some smaller mountains before we reached the prairie where you found us.” She remembered one thing more then. “We crossed a river before we got into the smaller mountains.”

That told Clint that it was going to be one hell of a challenge to find the stream she described, or even the area of the mountains her home was in. He had never been in the Black Hills, but he had heard tales about them from his father—tall, rugged mountains, covered with evergreen trees, meadowlike valleys of grass leading to rocky gulches. The Sioux called them Paha Sapa and considered them to be the center of the world. According to the treaties, white men weren’t even supposed to go there. “Tell me about the river,” he said.

Details began to return to her mind as she tried to look back in her memory. “I remember that we crossed a river where it looked like it forked with another river. My hands and feet were tied to the horse, and I was afraid I was going to drown if the water got too deep.” She shook her head as if trying to rid it of the memory. “It wasn’t very deep, though,” she added softly.

With no more information than that, he figured the only plan left to him was to head southeast to pick up the Indians’ trail where he had first encountered them. Anxious to reunite her with her husband and father as quickly as possible, he said, “We’ll start out to the east as soon as you eat somethin’. I know your family is worried about you.”

After a ride of five or six miles, Clint recognized the low line of hills from which he had watched the raiding party, but it was the middle of the day before he found their tracks. Kneeling beside the trail, he looked back toward the east and the blue-black silhouette of the hills in the distance. Glancing at Joanna then, he said, “I reckon home’s that way.” He stepped up in the saddle and started backtracking. “We’ll be lucky to reach those hills before dark.”

Forced to circle back when he lost the trail at the head of a wide ravine, he had to slow down to make sure he didn’t repeat the mistake. Knowing the horses would have to rest soon, he looked ahead, hoping to see a line of trees or shrubs that would indicate the presence of a stream. Seeing no sign, he pushed the horses on. It was then he heard Joanna call his name.

“Clint,” she uttered almost in a whisper.

When he turned toward her, he saw her looking off to her right. Following the line of sight, he spotted half a dozen Indians on a mesa some seven or eight hundred yards distant, their ponies in a single line, motionless as they watched the white man and woman passing toward the mountains. Oh, shit , he thought. It was at least three miles to the foothills they had been riding toward, and it appeared the warriors had the angle and could easily cut them off before they reached those hills. To make matters worse, the horses were tired and in no shape for an extended gallop. “Just keep ridin’,” he said to Joanna. “We’ll get as far as we can before they decide to jump us.”

“Maybe they haven’t seen us,” Joanna said fearfully, her face drawn in a concerned frown.

“Maybe,” Clint answered, knowing they’d have to be blind not to. He held Rowdy to a slow, leisurely pace, hoping the Indians would hold off long enough for him to find some form of cover. He saw very little, as he scanned the treeless terrain before them. The line of warriors on the ridge turned and, keeping pace with him, paralleled his path. Like him, they were still deciding where best to engage the enemy. You just keep riding , he thought. The longer they waited, the more time he had to find a place to make his stand. Holding steady to the trail he had been backtracking all morning, he finally decided that he wasn’t going to find any better place to defend than the shallow ravine he was approaching. He figured the six warriors weren’t going to let him reach the foothills now less than two and a half miles away, so he decided to take his stand in the ravine.

“This is as good a place as any,” he said to Joanna. “We’ll lead the horses down to the bottom, and I can get up behind those rocks on the rim with my rifle.”

“Shouldn’t we try to reach the hills?” she replied, worried.

“They’re not gonna let us reach those hills, and this is the best place between here and the hills.”

“Maybe they’re friendly,” she said, unconvincingly. “They haven’t done anything but follow us.”

“If they were friendly,” he answered patiently, “they would most likely have rode on down to meet us.” He guided Rowdy down into the ravine. It seemed to be a signal for the Sioux, for they stopped and appeared to be discussing a plan of attack. After a few minutes, they turned their ponies down the slope, and spread out in a fanlike formation, gradually picking up speed as they descended the ridge. I’d hoped they’d stay more bunched up , he thought.

Dismounting, he led the horses to the bottom of the ravine. “There ain’t nothin’ to tie the horses to,” he said. “We don’t want ’em to get scared by the shootin’ and run off. Can you hold ’em?” She nodded, but did not show a great deal of confidence. “You can do it,” he assured her. “Just sit down here on the ground and hold on to the buckskin and the paint’s reins. I’m gonna be busy up on the side, but I’ll keep an eye on you.” When he saw the worried look in her eyes, he said, “I’m gonna get you home safe.”

Figuring he had five or ten minutes before they were in rifle range, he used the time to fill his pockets with extra cartridges and load the Henry as well as his Winchester. Taking another look at Joanna, he felt reasonably sure that she was out of harm’s way, provided he could hold the warriors at bay. As an extra precaution, however, he pulled her father’s shotgun from the pack and loaded it. Handing it to her, along with his pistol, he said, “If somethin’ happens to me, use the shotgun first, then the pistol, but I don’t plan on you havin’ to use ’em a’tall.” With time running short, he scrambled up the side of the ravine to take his place behind a waist-high rock.